Seeing Eye dogs-in-training with their handlers practice basic manners and social skills at the Morris Arboretum before being placed with their humans. Photo courtesy of the Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania.

Institution profile

Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania is a 92-acre display and research garden in Philadelphia, PA, known for a spectacular collection of mature trees in a beautiful landscape. Morris offers educational programs for audiences ranging from youth to professionals and is a leader in botanical and horticultural research. Morris is the official arboretum of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and accredited by the American Association of Museums.

Program Description

Tour guests from SPIN, Inc., a program that supports adults with developmental disabilities, enjoy seeing their entry in the Arboretum’s Scarecrow Design exhibit. Photo courtesy of the Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania.

The Special Needs Guided Tour Program started with staff noting that teachers with special needs students preferred to do self-guided tours because they felt that the arboretum’s standard school tours did not meet their students’ needs. The same was true for groups of adults who came to the garden with staff from SPIN, Inc., which organizes daily activities for special needs adults.

In an effort to better understand and address the needs of those audiences, staff members reached out to Art-Reach Philadelphia, a nonprofit that connects underserved audiences, including the disabled community, to the city’s arts and cultural institutions. The organization audited the grounds of the Arboretum and made recommendations on how it could be more accessible to special needs visitors. Staff also contacted the Penn Museum, which already had a program for autistic students. The museum’s staff kindly shared its materials and expertise with the arboretum’s staff.  One of the arboretum’s volunteers was professionally involved in the management of day care for special need adults, which led to other contacts in the larger disabled community.

Using the Art-Reach recommendations and the resources and experience of the Penn Museum, staff developed three tours: one focused on mobility needs, the second on cognitive needs, and the third on socialization needs. The  arboretum then engaged Verbal Description Tours, Art-Reach, and Penn Museum staff  to train its volunteer tour guides to staff the new tours.

The arboretum asked SPIN to do trial runs of the newly created tours with its special needs adults. Based on the success of those trials, the program was marketed on the arboretum website and on the Penn Museum website.

Program impact

Special needs visitors enjoy the smells and tactile experiences along the Morris Arboretum’s Wisteria Walk during a Verbal Description tour, which is designed for those who are blind or have low vision. Photo courtesy of the Morris Arboretum of the University of Pennsylvania.

The number of SPIN visits mushroomed in the first year of the program as did tours and reservations for tours for special needs students.

Future plans

Word of mouth about the existence of the tours has not only fueled their success but has also led to other segments of that community asking the arboretum to become involved in their programs. As a result, the arboretum is now being used for seeing-eye dog training and their handlers training.

Takeaways for other public gardens

• Encourage staff to note audience segments the institution fails to reach. The key to the program’s creation was the recognition that the arboretum’s tour program did not meet the needs of students and adults with special needs.
• Locate other community organizations that serve your target audience and tap into their expertise. Morris Arboretum staff members quickly found other organizations serving special needs audiences and studied their experience and strategies before creating three tours targeting special needs students and adults.
• Recognize the importance of training volunteers. Morris also sought out organizations that ran tours for the disabled populations willing to train Morris volunteers to ensure the tours’ success.